specific heat

Physics.

1. the number of calories required to raise the temperature of 1 gram of a substance 1°C, or the number of BTU's per pound per degree F.

2. (originally) the ratio of the thermal capacity of a substance to that of standard material.

[1825-35]

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Ratio of the quantity of heat required to raise the temperature of a body one degree to that required to raise the temperature of an equal mass of water one degree.

The term is also used to mean the amount of heat, in calories, required to raise the temperature of one gram of a substance by one Celsius degree.

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▪ physics

      ratio of the quantity of heat required to raise the temperature of a body one degree to that required to raise the temperature of an equal mass of water one degree. The term is also used in a narrower sense to mean the amount of heat, in calories, required to raise the temperature of one gram of a substance by one Celsius degree. The Scottish scientist Joseph Black (Black, Joseph), in the 18th century, noticed that equal masses of different substances needed different amounts of heat to raise them through the same temperature interval, and, from this observation, he founded the concept of specific heat. In the early 19th century the French physicists Pierre-Louis Dulong and Alexis-Thérèse Petit demonstrated that measurements of specific heats of substances allow calculation of their atomic weights (see Dulong-Petit law (Dulong–Petit law)). See also heat capacity.

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